Mada strike deferred till June 20

PRADUMAN CHOUBEY

More than 15 lakh residents of Dhanbad, who are reeling in this blistering 40-plus summer and were anticipating an acute water crisis, just got a seven-day buffer time.

For, the 600-odd employees of water division of Mineral Area Development Authority (Mada) have decided to defer their strike till June 20. The indefinite strike was supposed to be launched from Friday.

The decision was prompted by a trilateral meeting attended by representatives of Mada employees, Mada authorities and Dhanbad DC Prashant Kumar on Thursday.

Kumar — who spoke to secretary of urban development department Ajay Kumar Singh and Jharkhand development commissioner Sudhir Kumar — assured the employees that all their issues would be taken up at an upcoming meeting of a state committee.

Notably, more than 600 employees under the banner of Pradhikar Karmachari Sangharsh Samanvaya Samiti have been clamouring for a host of demands like implementation of the Sixth Pay Commission recommendations with effect from January 1, 2006, Accelerated Career Progression scheme and pension scheme.

Speaking to The Telegraph, convener of the Mada samiti Shyam Narayan Dubey, who was present at the meeting along with four other representatives of the employees, said, “The strike has been deferred till June 20 after getting positive assurance from Kumar.”

Dubey and samiti president Bisheshwar Mahto have been invited to attend the state-level meeting. “We will take any decision only on June 20,” said Dubey.

Mada MD Ravindra Singh, technical member Vinod Kumar, secretary Biredra Singh, ADM (law and order) BPL Das, SDO Abhishek Srivastava were among others who took part in the meeting.

“Besides convincing the staff to postpone the strike, we have also successfully repaired the motor of the water treatment plant as well as the cable that burst on Wednesday. Supply was restored from the Jamadoba plant on Thursday,” said MD Singh.